In this post, I want to explore a vivid image developed by Larry Cuban to characterize the peculiar nature of teaching and learning in schools. Scholars have frequently argued for a form of educational exceptionalism that sees schooling as a social structure that is distinctive from the normal patterns of bureaucratic organization that one sees … Continue reading Larry Cuban — Rockets Are Complicated but Schools Are Complex; Thoughts about Educational Exceptionalism
Month: July 2020
Simon Schama: Why I Write
This post is an essay that the historian Simon Schama wrote for the Financial Times in 2012. The subject is, "Why I Write. " I find it a lovely meditation on the joy of appreciating good writing and the urge to try your own hand at it. Enjoy. Simon Schama: Why I Write Dickens’ abundance … Continue reading Simon Schama: Why I Write
Tilly: Why? Different Ways that People Give Reasons — and Lessons for Scholars
In this post, I explore the issue of the different ways in which people give reasons to each other. It draws on a lovely little book by sociologist Charles Tilly: Why? What Happens When People Give Reasons...and Why. One of the things that makes his account valuable is how it gives scholars a way of … Continue reading Tilly: Why? Different Ways that People Give Reasons — and Lessons for Scholars
What Kids Miss When They Go Without School
This is an op-ed I published in the New York Daily News on Friday. It’s on the things we miss about schools when they close – a reminder about the nonacademic functions of school that are closer to our hearts than its academic functions. What Kids Miss When They Go Without School David F. Labaree … Continue reading What Kids Miss When They Go Without School
Blaustein: Searching for Consolation in Max Weber’s Work Ethic
Last summer I posted a classic lecture by the great German sociologist, Max Weber, "Science as a vocation." Recently I ran across a terrific essay by George Blaustein about Weber's vision of the modern world, drawing on this lecture and two other seminal works: the lecture "Politics as a Vocation" (delivered a year after … Continue reading Blaustein: Searching for Consolation in Max Weber’s Work Ethic
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools
This post is a review I wrote of Steven Conn's book, Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools, which will be coming out this summer in History of Education Quarterly. Here's a link to the proofs. Steven Conn. Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools. Ithaca, NY: Cornell … Continue reading Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools
Links to All of My Publications and Course Materials
For anyone who's interested, today I'm posting below a list of all my publications and courses, including links to these works and to full course materials. Here's a link to a Word document with this hyperlinked material, and here's a link to my full CV including the former. David F. Labaree Links to Courses, … Continue reading Links to All of My Publications and Course Materials
Markovits: Schooling in the Age of Human Capital
Today I'm posting a wonderful new essay by Daniel Markovits about the social consequences of the new meritocracy, which was just published in the latest issue of Hedgehog Review. Here's a link to the original. As you may recall, last fall I posted a piece about his book, The Meritocracy Trap. In this essay, Markovits … Continue reading Markovits: Schooling in the Age of Human Capital
Frederick Douglass’s 1852 Speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
I’m reposting today one of the greatest speeches ever given, from that master of rhetoric, Frederick Douglass, which I originally posted last year about this time. It demonstrates the power of language to make arguments and change hearts. In a time like ours, when rhetoric is used to promote the worst social ills, it’s … Continue reading Frederick Douglass’s 1852 Speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 